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Population 13,454. Figures
taken from 2001 Census.
Carluke, the Clyde Valley's largest town,
sits on a high plateau overlooking the River Clyde. It lies on Jock's
Burn northwest of Lanark, right in the heart of Lanarkshire's fruit
growing area.
It has a thriving shopping centre and has
seen a recent boom in house building thanks to its direct train link
with Glasgow. The core shopping area was redesigned to create an
attractive shopping environment and work finished in 2006.
Thanks to its proximity to the Clyde
Valley's major fruit growers, one of Carluke's biggest employers is the
jam company Renshaw Scott which recently added a chocolate refinery to
its plant. Another major employer in the area is engineering company
Thomson Pettie.
Memorials to two of Carluke's most famous
sons were completed in 2006 as part of the town's Streetscape Project,
regenerating the centre of the town. On the paving outside the new
Somerfield store at the bottom of the High Street, a design of a compass
etched with arrows pointing to places relevant to Carluke such as Tinto
Hill and Carluke, New Zealand, has been created in honour of the noted
surveyor and cartographer Major General William Roy. Doctor Daniel Reid
Rankin is remembered by a plaque in Rankin Square with etchings of
fossils carved into the granite (see history section below).
The town's gala day is in June.
Housing in Carluke ranges from public sector
and private flats to family villas, new builds and country cottages.
The town has several primary schools and its
secondary school, Carluke High School, reopened in 2007 following a
rebuild as part of the Council's multi-million pound schools
modernisation programme. The town's leisure centre and pool are attached
to the school.
The local newspapers include the Carluke
Gazette and the Lanark and Carluke Advertiser.
Shopping
Carluke has an excellent range of high
street names and local shops as well as Aldi and Somerfield for food
shopping.
It has a wide selection of cafes,
restaurants and takeaways as well as specialist shops such as Ramsay,
the only Scottish butchers to use the traditional Ayrshire cure for
their bacon.
The town's location is also perfect for
access to the garden centres of the Clyde Valley.
How to
get there
Carluke can be reached from the M8 via the
A73 from either Glasgow or Edinburgh, the A70 or A71 from Edinburgh and
the A73 from Lanark. It has good bus services to outlying towns as well
as Glasgow and Edinburgh. There's a regular train service to Glasgow
Central.
History
Records show that the earliest inhabitants
in Carluke, also known as Kirkstyle, were monks. A Roman road passed
this way and a number of tower houses were built in the area.
It was chartered as a Royal Burgh in 1662
and by 1695 parish records report six families living in the area. In
1746 Bonnie Prince Charlie's army stopped in Carluke during their
retreat from Derby to feed and rest their horses.
By the 1800s the population had risen to 380
and the main industries were weaving and farming. The town exploded onto
the map several years later with the building of the Glasgow to Carlisle
trunk road and a train station.
Over the next two centuries Carluke became a
prosperous town thanks to corn milling, cotton weaving, coal mining and
the manufacture of bricks, glass, confectionery and jam.
During the Great War, two men from Carluke,
Lance-Corporal William Angus and Sergeant Thomas Caldwell were awarded
the Victoria Cross, as was Lieutenant Donald Cameron in World War II.
Many famous and a few infamous people have
come from Carluke. Major Thomas Weir was born near Carluke in 1599. Weir
was an officer in the Covenanting Army of James Graham, the Marquis of
Montrose. On retiring he was appointed to the honorary post of Captain
of the Town Guard in Edinburgh. Weir lived in Edinburgh's Lawnmarket
with his sister Jean. Dressed in a long cloak and always leaning on a
staff, he was respected for his powerful preaching. It was sensational
news, therefore when he confessed to sorcery, incest and other black
crimes. He was convicted and sentenced to be strangled and burned at the
stake. It was thought that his staff had a life of its own and when
thrown onto Weir's pyre it burned with great difficulty. Jean was later
convicted of witchcraft and hanged in the Grassmarket.
Surveyor and cartographer, Major General
William Roy was born at Miltonhead in 1726. Following the Jacobite
Rebellion led by Bonnie Prince Charlie, Roy was directed to produce a
map of Scotland. It took him eight years and the hand-drawn result is
exhibited in the British Library, London. Roy was later commissioned to
set up the network on which all subsequent surveying is based. He wanted
to set up a UK organisation for surveying and mapping but the Ordnance
Survey wasn't created until a year after his death. Roy also studied
Roman remains and his book Military Antiquities of the Romans in
Scotland was published three years after his death.
Peter Kid, originally from Fife, became one
of Carluke's Covenanting ministers in 1672. He twice refused to observe
Charles II as head of the Church and was imprisoned on the Bass Rock in
1685. He was released the next year due to failing health and old age
and moved back to Carluke. He is buried in Carluke Parish churchyard.
The sculptor Robert Forrest was born in
Carluke in 1790. He began as a stone mason and his work includes a
statue of William Wallace in Lanark and the statue of Henry Dundas,
Viscount Melville, which tops the Melville Monument in St Andrew's
Square, Edinburgh.
Milton Lockhart, two miles west of Carluke,
was the home of John Lockhart, born in 1794. He was the biographer of
Sir Walter Scott and in 1897 the remains of Milton Lockhart House were
transported to Japan and re-erected near Tokyo.
Doctor Daniel Reid Rankin, who was born in
1805, dedicated much of his life to helping the people of Carluke and
was a doctor in the town for more than 50 years. He wrote and published
a history of Carluke in 1875 and was a noted geologist and
palaeontologist (some of the fossils he collected are now housed in the
Royal Scottish Museum in Edinburgh). Rankin died in 1882 and was buried
in the old churchyard. |
